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David Lloyd GeorgePRIME MINISTER OF UNITED KINGDOM

WRITTEN BY: Robert Norman William Blake, Baron Blake

LAST UPDATED: Mar 22, 2019 See Article History

Alternative Titles: 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Viscount

Gwynedd of Dwyfor

David Lloyd George, also called (1945) 1st Earl Lloyd-

George of Dwyfor, Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor, (born

Jan. 17, 1863, Manchester, Eng.—died March 26, 1945,

Ty-newydd, near Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire,

Wales), British prime minister (1916–22) who dominated

the British political scene in the latter part of World War I.

He was raised to the peerage in the year of his death.

David Lloyd George

QUICK FACTS

David Lloyd GeorgeView Media Page

BORNJanuary 17, 1863Manchester, England

DIEDMarch 26, 1945 (aged 82)Caernarvonshire, Wales

TITLE / OFFICE

House Of Lords, United Kingdom (1945-1945)

Prime Minister, United Kingdom (1916-1922)

Chancellor Of The Exchequer, United Kingdom (1908-1915)

House Of Commons, United Kingdom (1890-1945)

POLITICAL AFFILIATIONLiberal Party

ROLE INWorld War IParis Peace Conference

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Early Life

Lloyd George’s father was a Welshman from Pembrokeshire and had become headmaster of an

elementary school in Manchester. His mother was the daughter of David Lloyd, a Baptist

minister. His father died in June 1864, leaving Mrs. George in poverty. She moved to

Llanystumdwy in Caernarvonshire, where her brother Richard, a shoemaker and Baptist minister,

supported her and her children; and it was from him that David Lloyd George imbibed many of

his formative beliefs. His uncle enabled him to embark at the age of 14 on the career of a

solicitor; he became articled (1879) to a firm at Portmadoc, passing his final examination in 1884.

In Wales, as in Ireland, an anglicized and Anglican Tory “ascendancy” class of landed gentry

dominated a Celtic people of different race and religion. The causes of the Liberal Party, the

Welsh nation, and Nonconformity were inseparable in the atmosphere in which Lloyd George

was raised, and he first made his name by a successful battle in the courts to establish the right

of Nonconformists to burial in the churchyard of their parish. Ironically, he who came to be the

standard-bearer of the oppressed religious sects had lost his faith even as a boy.

As a young man, Lloyd George had the romantic good looks that ensured success with women.

After numerous love affairs, he was married in 1888 to Margaret Owen, who bore him two sons

and three daughters. The marriage cannot be described as happy. Lloyd George was incapable

of fidelity, and his affairs with other women were notorious. His wife stood by him on many

occasions, but in the end his behaviour was too much for even her long-suffering tolerance.

David Lloyd George and his wife, Margaret, with their daughter Megan.

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Lloyd George entered Parliament in 1890, winning a by-election at Caernarvon Boroughs, the

seat he retained for 55 years. He soon made a name for himself in the House of Commons by

his audacity, charm, wit, and mastery of the art of debate. During the 10 years of Liberal

opposition that followed the election of 1895, he became a leading figure in the radical wing of

the party. He bitterly and courageously opposed the South African War and in 1901 was nearly

lynched in Birmingham, the stronghold of Joseph Chamberlain and Conservative imperialism.

With the arrival of peace, Lloyd George worked up a great agitation in Wales against tax-aided

grants to church schools established by Balfour’s Education Act (1902).

Arthur J. Balfour resigned in December 1905, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed a

Liberal administration, appointing Lloyd George to the Cabinet as president of the Board of

Trade. In that office, he was responsible for important legislation: the Merchant Shipping Act

(1906), improving seamen’s living conditions, but also endangering their lives by raising the

Plimsoll line on newly constructed ships; the Patents and Designs Act (1907), preventing foreign

exploitation of British inventions; and the Port of London Act (1908), setting up the Port of

London Authority. He also earned a high reputation by his patient work in settling strikes. He

suffered a cruel bereavement in November 1907, when his daughter Mair died of appendicitis at

the age of 17. Years afterward, the sight of her portrait could plunge him into tears.

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Chancellor of the Exchequer. Campbell-Bannerman’s health failed in 1908. He was succeeded

as prime minister by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Herbert Henry Asquith, who appointed

Lloyd George to take his own place. This was a notable promotion and made him at least a

strong competitor for the premiership after Asquith. By this time, the Liberal Party’s fortunes were

beginning to languish. The House of Lords had blocked much of its social reform legislation, and

the radical wing of the party was concerned that its thunder might be stolen by the nascent

Labour Party unless the deadlock could be broken. At the same time, the demand for more

battleships to match the German naval program threatened the finances available for social

reform. It was to meet these difficulties that Lloyd George framed the famous “People’s Budget”

of 1909, calling for taxes upon unearned increment on the sale of land and on land values,

higher death duties, and a supertax on incomes above £3,000. Moreover, it seemed for a time

that the House of Lords’ veto on progressive legislation would be bypassed, since the custom of

the constitution forbade the upper house from interfering with the budget. In fact, however, the

Conservative majority in the House of Lords, against the advice of some of its wiser members,

decided to reject it. The consequences of this rejection were two general elections, a major

constitutional crisis, and the ultimate passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which severely

curtailed the powers of the upper house. The principal burden of all this fell upon Asquith, but

Lloyd George gave him vigorous support in a series of notable philippics against the aristocracy

and the rich. The most famous of all was his speech at Limehouse, where he denounced the

rapacity of the landlord class, especially the dukes, in unforgettable language.

In 1913 he faced one of the gravest personal crises in his career. In April 1912, along with Rufus

Isaacs, the attorney general, he had purchased shares in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph

Company of America at a rate well below that available to the general public. The American

Marconi company was legally independent of the British concern, but the two companies were

closely connected, and the latter’s shares had recently boomed as a result of the government’s

decision to accept its proposal to construct a chain of radio stations throughout the empire. Lloyd

David Lloyd George, 1908.

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George and Isaacs denied, in somewhat ambiguous language, any transactions in the shares of

“the Marconi company,” a denial that technically referred only to the British company but was

generally assumed to cover the American as well. A select committee of the House of Commons

revealed the facts and, although by a party majority it acquitted the ministers of blame, Lloyd

George’s reputation was damaged.

Social Reform And The Outbreak Of War

Lloyd George’s major achievement during the years immediately before the war was in the field

of social insurance. Inspired by a visit to Germany (1908), where he studied the Bismarckian

scheme of insurance benefits, Lloyd George decided to introduce health and unemployment

insurance on a similar basis in Britain. This he did in the National Insurance Act of 1911. The

measure inspired bitter opposition and was even unpopular with the working class, who were not

convinced by Lloyd George’s slogan “ninepence for fourpence,” the difference in these two

figures being the employer’s and the state’s contribution. Lloyd George, undeterred, piloted his

measure through Parliament with great skill and determination. He thus laid the foundations of

the modern welfare state and, if he had done nothing else, would deserve fame for that

achievement.

Though much of the government’s time during these years was occupied by the Irish question,

Lloyd George played little part in it and, on the whole, left foreign policy to his colleagues. It was,

therefore, something of a surprise when, in July 1911, after careful consultation with Asquith and

Sir Edward Grey, he issued a formidable warning to Germany over the Moroccan crisis. When

the question of entry into the war convulsed the Cabinet in late July and early August 1914, he

seemed at first to incline to the isolationist section. For a brief moment he contemplated

retirement. But the tide of events swept him to the other side. As chancellor, he plunged into the

financial problems posed by the war.

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Minister Of Munitions And Secretary Of State ForWar

Throughout the remainder of 1914 and the early months of 1915, Lloyd George was a vigorous

advocate of increased munitions production. Here he came into sharp conflict with Lord Kitchener

in the War Office. The resignation of Admiral Fisher in 1915 forced Asquith to reconstruct the

government on a coalition basis and admit the Conservatives. In the new administration, Lloyd

George became minister of munitions. In this capacity, he made one of the most notable

contributions to the victory of the Allies. His methods were unorthodox and shocked the civil

service, but his energy was immense. He imported able assistants from big business and used

his eloquence to induce the cooperation of organized labour. When, in the summer of 1916, the

great Battle of the Somme began, supplies were forthcoming.

Lloyd George acquired definite views on war strategy at an early stage. He doubted the

possibility of breaking through on the Western Front and advocated instead a flank attack from

the Near East. He was thus at loggerheads with the view of the official military hierarchy,

cogently pressed by Sir Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson, that the war could only be won

in the West. On June 5, 1916, Kitchener was drowned on his way to Russia, when his ship

struck a German mine. A last-minute accident—acute developments in the Irish situation—alone

had prevented Lloyd George from travelling with him. After some hesitation, Asquith appointed

him to the vacant position at the War Office.

Lloyd George held the post for five months, but Robertson as chief of the imperial general staff

possessed nearly all the important powers of the war minister. Lloyd George chafed under these

restrictions, the more so because he disagreed with Robertson on issues of strategy. Thus

frustrated, he began to survey the whole direction of the war with increasing skepticism; and he

did not conceal his doubts from his friends who, by the end of November, had become convinced

that Asquith should delegate the day-to-day running of the war to a small committee whose

chairman should be Lloyd George. There was undoubtedly widespread uneasiness at Asquith’s

conduct of affairs, particularly in the Conservative Party. Asquith was manoeuvred into resigning

on December 5 and was replaced two days later by Lloyd George. He was supported by the

leading Conservatives, but the most prominent Liberal ministers resigned with Asquith.

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Prime Minister

Lloyd George was now 54 and at the height of his powers. His energy, eloquence, and ability

had already made him the leading statesman of the day, and his accession to the premiership

was highly popular in the country generally. He immediately substituted a small War Cabinet of

five, which was to be in constant session, for the body of 23 that had hitherto conducted affairs.

The result was a general speeding up of decisions.

One of Lloyd George’s most notable efforts was in combating the submarine menace, which, in

early 1917, threatened to starve Britain into submission. He achieved this by forcing the adoption

of the convoy system upon a reluctant Admiralty. The food shortage resulting from the submarine

war was acute. Drastic action had to be taken to step up agricultural production, and eventually a

system of food rationing had to be introduced (1918). In these matters Lloyd George was at his

best, contemptuous of red tape, determined to take action and to make his will prevail.

It was in the field of grand strategy that he was least successful. Lloyd George remained

profoundly skeptical of the ability of the British high command to conduct even a “Western”

strategy successfully. Without warning Haig or Robertson in advance, he confronted them at the

Calais Conference of February 1917 with a plan to place the British army under French

command for General Robert-Georges Nivelle’s forthcoming offensive. Haig and Robertson

deeply distrusted Lloyd George from that moment onward. The Nivelle offensive was a total

failure, and Lloyd George was, as a result, on shaky ground when he endeavoured to resist

Haig’s proposals for a major British campaign in Flanders in the summer. After much hesitation,

he gave way, and on July 31, 1917, the ill-fated Passchendaele offensive began. Although it may

have forestalled a possible German attack on the French, Passchendaele, with enormous loss of

David Lloyd George, caricature by Max Beerbohm, 1920.

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life, achieved none of its main objectives. Lloyd George was now convinced of the incompetence

of the British high command.

He still dared not take action against them openly. Instead, he began what Sir Winston Churchill

called “a series of extremely laborious and mystifying maneuvers,” with the object of creating a

unified command under someone other than Haig. In February 1918 Robertson offered his

resignation, which Lloyd George accepted, but Haig remained as commander in chief. Such was

Lloyd George’s distrust of Haig that, during the winter of 1917–18, he had deliberately kept him

short of troops for fear that he might renew the attack. The result was that the German

commander, General Erich Ludendorff, came near to launching a successful offensive against

the British sector in March 1918. The emergency caused a unified command under Marshal

Ferdinand Foch to be established (April), and by May the situation had stabilized.

The tide now turned, and the Western Allies launched a series of successful attacks upon the

exhausted Germans. The Armistice of November 1918 presented Lloyd George with a dilemma.

Should he allow a return to peacetime party politics or continue the coalition? There was little

doubt of the answer. The leader of the Conservatives, Bonar Law, was willing to cooperate. A

somewhat perfunctory offer to include Asquith was declined. The ensuing election in December

gave the coalitionists an overwhelming victory. The rift between Lloyd George and Asquith’s

supporters was now wider than ever, however, and Lloyd George was now largely dependent on

Conservative support.

As one of the three great statesmen at Versailles, Lloyd George must bear a major responsibility

for the peace settlement. He pursued a middle course between Georges Clemenceau and

Woodrow Wilson. But, throughout, Lloyd George was under pressure to pursue the more

draconian policy of Clemenceau. It is to his credit that the final settlement was not far worse than

it was. The treaty was well received in Britain, and in August 1919 the king conferred on Lloyd

George the Order of Merit.

(From left to right) Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French PremierGeorges Clemenceau, and U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson, Paris, 1919.

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A major domestic problem was Ireland, where the Sinn Fein refused to recognize the British

Parliament. From 1919 to 1921 a civil war raged. In the summer of 1921, Lloyd George, with full

agreement of his Conservative colleagues, reversed the policy of repression in Ireland and began

the negotiations that culminated in Irish independence in December 1921. The more rigid Tories

never forgave this “surrender,” as they deemed it. In 1922 Lloyd George ran into trouble over the

so-called honours scandal, when accusations were made that peerages and other honours were

being sold for large campaign contributions. Tory discontent was rife, when, from a wholly

unexpected quarter, a crisis occurred that drove Lloyd George from power forever. This was the

Çanak incident, in which it seemed to critics that the reckless foreign policy of the government

had led Britain to the verge of an unnecessary war with Turkey. When the Conservative leaders

decided to appeal to the country on a coalition basis once again, a party revolt ensued. Bonar

Law, who had retired because of ill health in 1921, returned to the political scene. On Oct. 19,

1922, a two-to-one majority of Conservative members of Parliament endorsed his and Stanley

Baldwin’s plea to fight as an independent party. Lloyd George at once resigned.

Later Years And Assessment

The long twilight of Lloyd George’s career was a melancholy anticlimax. The feud with the

Asquithians was never healed, and from 1926 to 1931 he headed an ailing Liberal Party. He

devoted himself thereafter to writing his War Memoirs (1933–36) and The Truth About the Peace

Treaties (1938). In 1940 Winston Churchill invited him to join his War Cabinet, but Lloyd George

declined, ostensibly on grounds of age and health. Just two months before his death, he was

elevated to the peerage as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor.

David Lloyd George, 1943.

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Lloyd George possessed eloquence; extraordinary charm and persuasiveness; a capacity to see

the heart of problems whose complexity baffled lesser men; a profound sympathy with oppressed

classes and races; and a genuine hatred of those who abused power, whether based on wealth

or caste or military might. But there was an obverse side to these virtues: his love of devious

methods; his carelessness over appointments and honours; and a streak of ruthlessness that left

little room for the cultivation of personal friendship.

Lloyd George, for all his greatness, aroused in many persons a profound sense of mistrust, and it

was in the upper-middle class, represented in politics by Stanley Baldwin and Neville

Chamberlain, that he inspired the most acute misgivings. They were both determined to exclude

him from office, and it would be wrong to ascribe his long years in the political wilderness solely

to the declining fortunes of the Liberal Party. Lloyd George was thus never able to recover the

position he had lost in 1922. It was one of the tragedies of the interwar years that, in an era not

notable for political talent, the one man of genius in politics should have had to remain an

impotent spectator. But his earlier achievements make his place in history secure: he laid the

foundations of the welfare state and led Britain to victory in World War I.

Robert Norman William Blake, Baron Blake

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